In vehicles, video-camera devices are sometimes installed on the windscreen, in proximity to the central mirror, in the upper middle portion of the windscreen. Such a location allows the system a wide and unobstructed field of view.
Video-camera devices generally include a video-camera-module portion comprising the lens and the image sensor of the video camera, the module being arranged on a first printed-circuit board so that the optical axis of the lens is perpendicular to the printed-circuit board. Video-camera devices generally also include a portion for processing images and interfacing with the vehicle, this portion being arranged on a second printed-circuit board.
One of the most common requirements made of these video-camera devices is that the main optical axis be parallel to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle.
Because of this requirement, the printed-circuit board is placed perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle so that the optical axis of the video camera is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle.
The image processing of video-camera systems is carried out on a printed-circuit board that is much larger and more complex than the printed-circuit board comprising the image sensor. The tendency of integration requirements is to decrease the size of on-board video-camera systems.
It is known to design video-camera systems in which the printed-circuit board on which the image processing is carried out is arranged inclined by up to about a few tens of degrees to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle. This generally results in the printed-circuit board including the image sensor being connected to the printed-circuit board carrying out the image processing with a flexible ribbon cable. Such an assembly of three elements in a small environment is a complex and expensive operation.
It is therefore important to provide a novel solution solving these problems.